Exactly how a prominent detergent brand survived six decades without a goofy advertising mascot is unclear. But now our long national nightmare of non-personified laundering is over, with the arrival of Surf's "Surfy", a mute, roly-poly apparition who isn't just frothing at the mouth but foaming all over. Imagine the Michelin Man if he took a tumble into a vat of toxic slop like That Poor Guy At The End Of RoboCop, a sorry creature chemically reformatted into a liquefying golem who somehow retains a psychic echo of his original form. Is that expression really just a gormless grin of childish wonder? Or is it a silent howl of despair?

Surfy makes his screen debut at a non-specific and clearly idealised boutique music festival. By artificially pressurising his bonce like a fractious budget airline passenger attempting to make their ears pop, our bubbly hero discovers he can discharge small floating payloads of scent at reeking festival-goers. Emboldened by his ability to neutralise a row of chemical toilets with his own soapy napalm, Surfy bypasses security to loiter in the wings of the main stage. At this point, observant viewers may think they have skipped two steps ahead of the creatives. The product is Surf. The character is called Surfy. He is at a music festival. Clearly, the climax of the ad will involve him crowd-surfing. Yet, after galumphing forward and launching into an awkward stagedive, Surfy unexpectedly explodes in mid-air, throwing out a wide dispersal of potpourri fragrance like a textbook low-altitude chemical weapons deployment. Welcome to Latherpalooza.